Patrick Schulte's Blog, page 116

Anchors and Hot Dogs

The other day when we lifted the anchor right before dark for the overnight sail to Santa Rosalia we saw just how lucky we were that we left when we did. The anchor was just barely hanging onto the chain thanks to a missing pin on the swivel shackle. Again, my terminology is bad, but see that little round cotter pin in the picture? That was missing. And that big pin that the anchor is pulling against had managed to slide halfway out—only the weight of the anchor pulling against it was keeping it from falling all the way out. And yes, I know that little round pin I put in isn’t correct, but it’s all I could find at the moment, and I knew we weren’t dropping anchor again for a while.

And just to continue my healthy living posts—here was tonight’s little snack. Times two. The Mexican Hot Dog. Dog wrapped in bacon, covered in onions, tomatoes, mayo, ketchup, cheez whiz, and jalapeños, all wrapped up in an incredibly large soft bun. Sixteen pesos please.

I don’t think these two have ever been quite this sweaty and dirty. It was just one of those days where they played hard, and were sure to play on floors, under tables, on sidewalks, whatever. Here we were sitting in the town gymnasium again watching the girls play basketball. Ouest’s favorite was the girl with the purple stripe down the side of her shorts. She watched her as if she was the greatest professional athlete on earth.

Bumfuzzle Audiobook

I know a lot of you listened to Live on the Margin instead of reading it. And you probably thought, “Wow, that Nick O’Kelly sure has one smooth voice.” Admit it. Well he went ahead and did me a solid by voicing Bumfuzzle – Just Out Looking for Pirates. If you like listening to books on your way to work—something that’ll encourage you to quit working—then pop on over to Amazon and buy it NOW!!!!!

And hey, right now Amazon is practically giving it away for $1.99 if you already own the Kindle version (which is only $2.99 you cheap bastard).

A Puppy

So I forgot to mention that I did finally succeed in getting our AC fridge working again. It’s not working as well as it should, but when plugged in to shore power it really doesn’t have to be. We’re going to be doing a lot of boat work soon and I’m planning on having both systems vacuumed (if that’s the term), as well as replacing a couple of suspect hoses, before filling them up again. In theory our refrigeration system is a pretty good one. It should be capable of keeping our food and beer cold. And now that I’ve learned a bit about how to actually do things right I’m hopeful that I may be able to keep it running cold. If not you’ll just get to continue hearing me complain about it.

Today while we were all standing in the shade of a building for a few minutes rest a guy standing nearby handed me a half-eaten packet of cookies to give to the kids. Generous thought, even if the kids weren’t getting the cookies. Then later on Ouest and Ali were in a store that had one of those machines that spit out a plastic egg with a “treasure” inside. Ouest was just standing there looking at it while Ali was paying for her groceries. A man nearby walked up to Ouest and plopped in five pesos. She came home yelling, “Papa, Papa, a man gave me a puppy.” I froze—ready to strangle Ali—for the few seconds it took her to come aboard with her tiny plastic puppy.

This afternoon we went and had pizza and beers with some friends who found our site in 2007 after a nice day on the water in their trailer-sailer when they decided to sail around the world. Google Sail Around the World and six years later you too might be sharing a dock with us in Mexico or points beyond.

What Day Is It?

Yesterday we tried calling my mom to wish her a happy birthday. The kids were all excited, she answered Skype, the kids squealed, and that was it—our internet connection couldn’t pull it off. We reluctantly gave up and sent her birthday e-mails instead.

This morning Ali noticed that yesterday was the 6th. Sooooo… Happy Birthday again Mom. June 6th would be a good day for a birthday, but June 7th is a great day for one.

We went to the museum today, which I had sort of anticipated as being a hands on type place. The streets here are filled with train cars and all sorts of miscellaneous mining stuff for people to climb around on, but when we walked into the museum the stern looking guy at the guard desk stood up, marched out into the hall, and motioned for us to follow him. He snapped as the kids got their grubby mitts on a phone operators setup and from then on we dutifully followed him quickly through the handful of rooms. I don’t remember a thing about what we saw as I was so busy saying, “No, no, sorry baby, don’t touch that. No, no tocar. Not that either.” Once outside on the sweeping veranda we were able to breathe and enjoy the view over the town and the harbor.

While walking to get ice cream we passed by a gymnasium where some kids were playing basketball. We got our ice cream next door and then went inside the gym to watch. There was a girl’s team practicing on one end and a group of boys playing on the other. The four boys, maybe ten or twelve years old, came over and started chatting us up, asking the kid’s names, rustling their hair, and inviting them to go out and play. Ouest was super excited—she sprinted onto the court, picked up a ball, and spent the next thirty minutes coming surprisingly close to the basket. The girl is strong. Some of the girls came down and helped the kids out too.

Eventually they needed more room on the court so our sweat-soaked kids had to get off. The boys had to get off the court too, so we took them next door and filled them up with a round of agua frescas—much to their delight. They were smiling and skipping on their way back across the street with their styrofoam cups in hand. “Adios Oeste (Spanish for Ouest), adios Lowe!” they called over their shoulders.

Walking the Waterfront

The Santa Rosalia malécon. I’m loving this town and having a hard time figuring out why no other cruisers have shown up. The marina is empty despite the fact that 9 out of 10 Sea of Cortez cruisers are hauling out or leaving their boats in San Carlos—just seventy-five miles away—in the next month or so. We’ve only been here a few days but I think Santa Rosalia is now my favorite town in Baja. At least as far as cruising towns go.

Seriously, what the hell is this Mad Max contraption?

I’m not sure what they call this old building—the smelter, maybe—but it was pretty darn cool of them to leave it up and to leave it completely open to trespassers like us. Some things you would just never see in the States, this is one of them. Right on the main highway through town, rusty catwalks, loose brick, and not a soul around. If the kids were ten I would leave them there all day with five bucks in their pockets for ice cream across the street.

I hear food blogs are all the rage with the kids these days, so… well… here goes nothing.

Trick Feet, Sick Feet

This morning we walked up the hill planning to have breakfast at the hotel we stayed in a few years back while passing through town. The homes up here are clearly where the officers of the mining company lived a hundred years ago—well spaced, large, and located where they might actually catch a breeze. We worked up a good sweat climbing the stairs up the hill only to discover that the hotel wasn’t serving breakfast. Go figure. We tramped back down and ate in the only air-conditioned place we could find.

We used to get Ouest a helium-filled balloon at least weekly, but Lowe, being the second child has rarely seen one. He was fairly stoked by it and would definitely have walked right out into the street with his head tilted skyward had we not kept a close watch. Of course being a boy his balloon only lasted ten minutes before the pony it was tied to was thrown through a set of rusty metal bars. Boom. Being the forward thinkers we are we had spares on hand.

Below is what happens these days when we actually say the words, “Can you guys smile for a picture.” So natural.

And this is what happens to little girls who don’t heed their parent’s warnings to stay off the hot wooden deck by the marina pool. Blistered toes.

In the afternoon Ouest and I took a dinghy ride around the harbor to take pictures. After ten minutes she said, “Papa, my legs are tired.” This is code for, “Papa, I’m ready to go back home.”

Around Town

This is how we spent the day in Santa Rosalia—a town quickly becoming a Bumfuzzle favorite.

Santa Rosalia Cooling

“We’re not talking just to hear ourselves talk.”

I kid you not, I said that today. I could almost see my dad’s bushy black mustache moving up and down in the reflection of Ouest’s eyes.

Seriously though, how do kids just listen to what you say and then turn their head and do exactly what you just told them not to? It’s no wonder I got the red Betty Crocker spoon across the ass all the time. Lowe does it every morning now. At about 6:45 he’s climbing the stairs and headed outside. Never mind that he can’t be out there alone, there’s dew all over the deck, and we’re still bouncing around in our undies.

“Lowe, we’re not going outside right now. Come back down. Lowe. Stop. Come back down. Lowe. Stop. Lowe. Lowe. Lowe?”

This morning we stopped in at an air-conditioning place and asked about a refrigerator repairman por mi barco. Yep, that’s how we roll. Oh, I see you repair air-conditioners, well then you must repair twenty-year-old boat refrigerators too. Right?

While waiting for the guy to show up I somehow managed to get the engine-driven working myself. I’m not going to get technical because it’s a really long and really boring story that I can hardly explain to myself much less anybody else who might care to listen.

The repairman showed up, fresh off his day in the copper mines cleaning 700 window air-conditioning units (I don’t think he got them all done in one day), flipped on the AC system and watched as the line quickly frosted up. Nice and cold.

A minute later it melted as the high-pressure cut-off valve did it’s job. Which also explained the problem. Too much refrigerant. Which convinced me once and for all that if I’m going to continue using these systems I really need to spend the money to buy a set of pressure gauges.

An hour later the AC system wasn’t working again, but that had less to do with the repairman and more to do with me not letting him finish the job properly because my kids needed to eat dinner and go to bed. I am fairly confident however, that I’ll be able to get it going myself in the morning (since I failed at it tonight).

Overnight to Santa Rosalia

We left last night right after putting the kids to bed. And after a star-filled inky black night we arrived in Santa Rosalia just after breakfast, bypassing in the dark what has to be one of the best bays in the Sea—Concepcion. But hey, we’ve got nothing cold to drink, and we are not those people that are cool with no refrigeration on the boat. We’re just not that hippy.

Santa Rosalia is a cool little place. It’s an old copper mining town that the French basically came in and created back in the late 1800s. The architecture is totally different than anything else in Baja—all low slung wood buildings, most two-story with porches, and tin roofs. It’s a happening place with two busy streets through the main part of town and a picture to be taken every five steps. There’s even an Eiffel designed steel church—or at least that’s the claim. It’s pretty difficult to see anything about the church that would make one think of Eiffel, but the locals like it—so it sticks.

The port itself gives the feeling of being in a place built over a hundred years ago as well. The vibe here is just so different than anywhere else in Baja, and we’re really digging it. We actually passed through here a few years ago in the VW bus. All we really remember is the torrential rains that made us turn into a hotel at the top of the hill with a distinctly Clint Eastwood feel to it.

On our first walk into town, and the first shop I poked my head into, I’d found my refrigerant. The owner told me I could find a refrigeration mechanic a block up the street, which I didn’t in fact find, but I did stumble across an air-conditioning repair place with all the usual gauges and an entire rack of refrigerant. It’s Sunday so everything was closed, but I have a feeling we’re in the right place.

Check it out, a cruiser gray beard. Don’t try and tell me I’m not a real cruiser any more. All right, maybe four or five days of growth doesn’t qualify, but it was enough to get Ali talking. “You need to shave,” she said at one-hour intervals. I actually only took this because I wanted to see what it would look like using the 50mm lens. That lens is crazy sharp. And yes, I tamed that wild nose hair while shaving.

Calm Mornings

We’ve made no headway on the refrigeration. So that’s out of the way.

Gorgeous calm night, gorgeous calm morning, and gorgeous calm day on the beaches. This bay has a few anchorages on the north end and this one on the south. We had this one all to ourselves. Cruising confounds me at times—one day I’m thinking about where to take the boat to sell it and the next I’m staring at a world map plotting a new route around the world. Boat problems make me think of the selling, calm boat mornings make me think of the world.

Anyway, we had a nice day here. Unfortunately our warming fridge full of food is keeping us on the move. We left tonight right after putting the kids to bed. Yes, Ouest can sleep through the windlass and the chain dumping into the chain locker at her feet. It’s a gift. The sea is a freshly laid blacktop highway right now and we’re hoping—rather confidently—that it will continue through the night.